A regional daily scooped a hat-trick of awards at a ceremony honouring the work undertaken by Trinity Mirror’s journalists.

The Liverpool Echo won three gongs at the company’s annual Excellence Awards, held at the Landmark Hotel, Marylebone, London, on Wednesday night.

James Maloney triumphed for the Echo in the Photojournalist of the Year category, while James Pearce jointly received the Regional Sports Journalist of the Year accolade with Samuel Luckhurst of the Manchester Evening News.

The third Echo winner was Rachel Cunningham, who won Best Use of Marketing Creativity for a giant mural of Liverpool footballer Steven Gerrard, made up of good luck messages sent in by readers and erected by the newspaper to mark the player’s departure from the club.

Other regional press winners included Newcastle daily The Chronicle, which won Front Page of the Year for the splash pictured below.

The story concerned a group of Metro passengers who had come to the rescue of a Muslim woman being racially abused while on a train.

Abbie Wightwick, of Media Wales, won Feature Writer of the Year moving series of pieces on the Holocaust, including the memories of a survivor who had never shared them before.

Wales Online won the Video Award for the “breadth and humour of their video output throughout the year”, while the Birmingham Mail’s Jeanette Oldham won Regional Scoop of the Year for her series of damning reports revealing the extent of child exploitation in Birmingham.

Kelly Williams, of the Daily Post, won Regional News Journalist of the Year.  She used social media to discover the story of a nine year-old boy who wants to live as a girl, and “old school reporting skills” to persuade his mum to tell her remarkable story.

Belfast Live jointly won the Digital Excellence award with the Daily Mirror video team, while former GetReading publisher Ed Walker shared the ‘Beyond the Call of Duty’ Award for his role in launching the digital-only venture following the closure of the Reading Post.